


It’s funny how things work out

by unfolded73



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Kid Fic, Parenthood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-09 19:13:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12894861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unfolded73/pseuds/unfolded73
Summary: little Daddy Charming ficlet





	It’s funny how things work out

**Author's Note:**

> Posted on tumblr a little while ago; posting it here by request.

Emma’s infant skin was the softest thing he’d ever touched.

David had only had a few moments before he lost her, before the curse took everything he held dear, but the memory of that soft baby skin under his calloused fingers was like a punch to the gut when he awoke from the curse. Standing before him was a woman – a woman who’d grown from that baby into a beautiful, fierce hero all on her own. He hugged her, cradling her head the way he’d once cradled the head of that infant, and longed for the lost moments, gone forever.

He couldn’t help but feel possessive of her; she was his daughter. He knew she would hate it and would probably call it sexist and patriarchal, but he just couldn’t stop himself. As the memories collided together in his brain, it struck him: his daughter had a child, which meant his daughter had gotten pregnant entirely too young, when she was still practically a child herself. If Henry’s father had somehow found himself in Storybrooke at that moment, in those first few minutes after the curse broke, then very possibly he would have found himself at the pointy end of a sword.

He never told anyone about those murderous thoughts, especially after Neal reentered Emma’s life. David knew she was an adult, he knew he had no business making any claims to his daughter’s virtue. This was the modern world, and anyway, he’d forfeited any right to comment on her love life when he put her in that wardrobe. So when Snow fantasized that Emma and Neal shared true love, that fate had brought these two lost children of the Enchanted Forest together in the land without magic, and now had brought them back together again, David clenched his jaw and went along. He even encouraged Emma to give Neal a chance, because his wife was nothing if not persuasive when she talked about true love.

Besides, it was better than seeing his only daughter with that damned pirate.

It’s funny how things work out.

The sight of Hook’s ringed fingers against his daughter’s skin drove him crazy – he’s ashamed to admit it now, but he can’t deny it to himself. That hand that held a sword against innocent men, that pillaged and plundered and the gods only knew what else, with fingers interlaced with Emma’s, or cupping her cheek when they weren’t aware he was watching – it was enough to make a father challenge a certain pirate to a duel, not that he ever did. He tried to pretend he didn’t notice when Emma was letting herself back into the loft at dawn, tried to avert his eyes from the casually intimate way Hook started touching her in public, but he noticed. _Let them be,_ Snow said, _she’s finally opening her heart._ And again, his wife was persuasive, and he did as she asked.

But he worried. And he longed to go back and have all those lost days of her youth. Perhaps it would have been easier to let her go into the arms of her pirate if he’d not been cheated of all those days with her as a girl. If he’d not been robbed of every chance to cradle her in his arms.

The pirate in question sits across from him now, totally enraptured by a tiny bundle in his arms, just as David had been so many years ago. But today there is no threat, no curse, no soldiers threatening to take away everything they hold dear. There is just his daughter, curled up asleep on the sofa next to him, and _her_ daughter, barely a week old now and content in her father’s arms.

Killian strokes a finger gently down the baby’s cheek.

“There’s nothing softer than a baby’s skin, is there?” he asks his son-in-law.

The pirate’s smile is soft, and he doesn’t take his eyes off of his new child. “No.”

David looks at Emma, her face relaxed in sleep.

It’s funny how things work out.


End file.
